Is GTA Online safe to play on PC in March 2023?

GTA Online was prey to hacking exploits in mid-January that left players troubled and asking for support from Rockstar Games. A week later, on February 1, 2023, the Support Team at Rockstar released a new patch that fixed some security issues.

Four weeks later, on February 28, 2023, they released another patch with more security fixes and improved game performance and stability.

After all the support from Rockstar and their explanation of the fixes, players are still worried about their accounts and secure gameplay.

This article focuses on the exploits that had players concerned the whole time, the hack's fixes, and whether GTA Online will be further safe for players.

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A short overview of the GTA Online hack in January 2023

The first report of the exploit was made by famed GTA insider and expert Tez2. He tweeted about a high-alert situation for PC online users, stating that extreme exploits had appeared in the game. These exploits allowed modders and cheaters to remotely modify players' stats and eventually ban or delete their accounts.

Many more Twitter users started posting about how their online experience had become glitchy and interrupted with prompts displaying their account ban.

After hearing about many reports and chaos on Twitter, the famous Grand Theft Auto content creator TGG requested Rockstar Games be concerned about the players and fix the issues in a tweet.

On February 24, 2023, Rockstar Games' Support Team tweeted that they were aware of the exploits and were working on a new security-related title update.

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GTA Online's security patch

Finally, a few days later, on February 1, 2021, Rockstar Games' Support Team released the security update and its patch notes on their website. A newer patch for the same build version was released on February 28, 2023.

In the first part of the patch notes, Rockstar stated that they had created a secure new data protocol for messaging and network sessions and fixed the issue regarding third-party alterations of player stats in the PC version of the game.

The other newly updated part of the notes focused on extending the security fixes to next-gen consoles as well as removing bugs that were crashing the game randomly.

Apart from security and game crash fixes, engineers at Rockstar Games also drastically improved GTA Online's performance and stability.

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Is the game still safe after the patch?

As soon as Rockstar Games released the revised patch one week ago, players were no longer concerned about the security issues as the exploits had been removed from GTA Online and modder activity had declined.

Some players did report several crashes during game sessions, but that was because they hadn't updated it. The escalated chaos in the gaming community seems to have vanished.

While many still have concerns about a worse exploit in the future, others have been praising Rockstar's security patch that has solved their many problems. Most GTA Online players on Reddit responded positively to the patch.

One user reported that crew/account stealing was still prevalent in the game. Informed users replied that it was not the fault of the security patch but that Rockstar needed to communicate with their outsourced support company and revise agent guidelines.

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Considering GTA Online's security status, it has been augmented to prevent more identical attacks, and even if a newer exploit is found in the game, the engineering team at Rockstar Games will be quick to respond and fix the security issues.

Given all of that, both PC and console players have no need to be concerned about a major hack in March 2023.